I have dentures and believe me I wish I had my real teeth. I remember when I could pick up a nice red juicy apple and sink my teeth into it. Now, I have to cut it into small pieces. Can't keep my teeth in place to bite it. How about sneezing or coughing? Can't sneeze or cough like I use to. I have to keep my hand up at my mouth for fear I will blow my teeth across the room. Oh how embarrassing that can be.

And don't get sick and have to throw up, better remove those fake teeth before hand or you will be fishing them out of the old throne. And don't you just love those little sesame seeds that seem to find their way under your plate and it feels like a golf size rock. You need to get it out quick, but you are at a table full of people and can't seem to get your tongue under there, so you have to excuse yourself to get away from the table. After a few times like that, everyone starts to wonder about you. Especially when you are invited out to eat. The hostess starts to think something is wrong with her cooking. Try explaining the exits without telling them what is really going on.

How about leaving for work and getting almost there or even getting there and realizing you don't have your teeth in your mouth. I have gone on shopping trips and forgot my teeth and pray I don't run into someone I know. And isn't it always the case that you always run into someone you work with. You don't want to be a snob and avoid them but you don't want to talk to them toothless, or you will be the big joke at work for the next week or so. You want a good laugh, take a picture of yourself with your teeth smiling and then take one without smiling, compare the two. You will laugh and then make a promise that you will not forget them when you leave the house.

I can say I feel relaxed visiting my mother. She hates her dentures too and we both plop them in a glass of water and sit and chat. Talking about mom, I remember going to Virginia for my nephews wedding. We stayed in a motel room while up there. One side of the sink was a glass with my mothers dentures in it and the other side was mine. Well my mother got up and put her dentures in, after a while she had gone to the sink and not thinking, saw my dentures in the glass, rinsed them off and tried to put them in her mouth. It hit her, her teeth were already in her mouth, these weren't hers. We had a good laugh over that.

If I could go back in time, one thing I would do, is take care of my teeth. You would not know unless you have dentures, what a pain in the neck they can be. I don't know what it is like to really taste a good meal unless I eat with no teeth. And then everything has to be soft. At times I feel like a baby with no teeth, the only thing, I eat grown up food not baby food out of a jar.

SO TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH, DON'T END UP WITH DENTURES, OR YOU MAY BE HOLDING ON THEM SO THEY DON'T END UP FLYING ACROSS THE FLOOR OR IN THE OLD THRONE.